the purposeful brand: the path to meaningful...
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THE PURPOSEFUL BRAND:THE PATH TO MEANINGFUL EXPERIENCES
As competition rises, companies are focusing more and more
on Customer Experience (CX)– not as a siloed function, but as a
disciplined ethos that permeates every area of their business. But
there has to be something at the core that continually inspires that
discipline and unifies the organization. Something more human.
The Purposeful Brand
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Key Takeaways
Brands need to define their Shared Purpose - something that drives higher-level value beyond transactions. Customers, especially Millennials, expect more from brands today. They
want to know that if they buy into a brand, they are contributing to the
achievement of that brand’s vision.
The ability to fulfill that Shared Purpose at every turn is key
to success.
A brand’s purpose sets the bar for your customer’s expectations. It
should guide the full experience you intend to create, going far beyond
traditional marketing initiatives – into product innovation, packaging, the
call center, and even the bill a customer receives in the mail.
Brands who make their Shared Purpose the focal point that drives all
other initiatives will rise to the top.
Having a Shared Purpose that guides all other experiences will set your
company apart from the rest, ultimately resulting in financial success –
even when financial goals are not the primary objective.
That something is your Brand’s Purpose. Companies that
recognize the critical link between their brand and the
customer experience will ultimately elevate and differentiate
the experience they deliver, leading to deeper relationships with
customers and sustained growth. Here we explore the power of a
brand centered around a Shared Purpose, and outline a detailed
approach to crafting it.
The Purposeful Brand
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WALKING WITH PURPOSE
What happens when you put on a pair of shoes –
shoes you may have had for a decade, that tell a
story of your life, where you’ve been, and let you
freely express who you are? Imagine that same
pair of shoes was made by a company that builds
skate parks in urban areas so kids can get outside
and be active. What if buying that pair of shoes
brought music to the world, helping to build pop-
up recording studios where struggling musicians
can record a demo they couldn’t have afforded
otherwise? You might feel like every step you take
in those shoes makes an impact. You feel pride in
wearing them and inspired by the company that
makes them.
Or why is it that you can feel completely
comfortable in a stranger’s home in a faraway
town and feel a sense of belonging in his or her
community? What if the company that helped you
travel to that town also sent you $10 to go out
and make a difference in someone’s life in your
hometown? What do you feel in these examples
and hundreds of others you’ve experienced?
You feel a human connection. You feel trust and inspiration. You feel a sense of purpose.
Converse and AirBNB have built wildly
successful brands by starting with a defined
purpose – something more important than
products or profits. Something bigger
than themselves. Converse is about enabling
self-expression. AirBNB is about instilling a
sense of community and belonging. Everything
the brands stand for, everything they do, every
experience they create, is working towards
improving and enriching lives and the world in
some way. And the financial success they’ve
enjoyed is the result – not the objective.
The concept of a brand’s purpose is not new.
Many companies have been contributing to
the betterment of society for years, through
charitable donations, volunteerism and corporate
social responsibility. They lauded their own efforts
through external communication and PR efforts,
receiving well-deserved praise and elevating their
brand image. Most of these efforts originated
from what the company, and the company alone,
wanted to achieve.
But things have changed. Designing your purpose
around the company’s world view and needs alone
isn’t enough.
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GROWING THROUGH PURPOSE
Purpose goes much deeper and needs to
be multi-faceted in today’s complex world.
Companies can no longer define their purpose
based on their own intentions and desires.
Customers, especially Millennials, are looking
to connect with brands that uphold the same
values, standards and vision of our world as
they do. They want to know that if they buy into a
brand, they are contributing to the achievement
of that brand’s vision.
“The median return of the 40 publicly traded
stocks on [Fortune’s Change the World] list has
been 16.6%—edging out the S&P 500 (16.5%)
and handily beating the MSCI World Index
(11.3%)…[This list identifies] 50 companies
across the globe that are tackling major societal
problems—reducing damage to the environment,
strengthening communities, serving the
underserved, and significantly improving lives as
a function of their business model—and whose
good works contribute to their bottom lines1.”
Every company must define a Shared Purpose
with their audience. Something that drives
higher-level value beyond the transactional
benefits of your products or services. Value not
just for your customers, but your employees and
the community.
As humans, we strive for purpose. We want to be a part of something – to belong to a movement, to influence change in the world, and to co-create with brands.
It’s not enough that we feel good about your
brand’s purpose, we want it to be our purpose
too. Purpose needs to be mutually relevant,
meaningful, and shared with your customers.
Furthermore, companies can no longer build
their brand awareness and equity solely through
marketing and communications. Customers are,
and expect to be, involved at every point. Digital
media has given them an ear and a voice in every
conversation…real time. Any company misstep or
negative customer experience is immediate fodder
on social media. Customers expect transparency
– and if they don’t get it, they create it. They are
savvy and they know how to navigate brands and
quickly weed out those that are inauthentic based
on the actual experiences they have with the
brand. Like often in life, actions speak louder
than words.
1 Leaf, C. (2016, August 23). How Fortune’s ‘Change the World’ Companies Profit From Doing Good. Retrieved May 01, 2017, from http://fortune.com/2016/08/18/change-world-companies-profit/?iid=recirc_ctwlanding-zone2
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What makes a strong brand purpose?
It should be clear, inspirational and action-oriented. It should be human. (e.g. Starbucks’ “To inspire and nurture the human spirit one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time”)
It goes beyond pure financial success. (e.g. Always’ “Boosting girls’ self-esteem”)
It is bigger than any leader, product, service, team or technology that exists in your organization today, because it’s holistic and evergreen. (e.g. Loreal’s “Offering Beauty for All”)
Brands that identify and share their authentic
purpose with customers will rise to the top. In
fact, the book Firms of Endearment is based
on a 15-year study that proved purpose-driven
organizations outperformed the S&P 500 by a
ratio of 14:12. Focusing on reaching a purpose-
driven goal can be far more impactful to your
stakeholders than pure financial goals.
Shared Purpose drives benefits across a broad
set of stakeholders:
• Company Unites company leadership, drives decision making and motivates our employees to give more of their mind, heart and time to the organization.
• Customers Drives richer brand experiences that delight customers and provides a sense that the company is supporting fulfillment of their shared goals.
• Employees Provides an inspiring and collaborative culture that ignites passion for, and commitment to, the meaningful work they do every day.
• Community Engages those in our local or digital communities to be a part of improving the world around us. Ultimately making a deeper impact on our community.
2 Sisodia, R., Sheth, J. N., & Wolfe, D. B. (2014). Firms of endearment: how world-class companies profit from passion and purpose. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
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EXPERIENCING AUTHENTIC PURPOSE
When grounded in purpose, a brand becomes
much deeper than a logo or a color palette. It
sets the bar for your customer’s expectations and
guides the full experience you intend to create. It
radiates from places beyond traditional marketing
elements – into product innovation, packaging,
the call center, and even the bill a customer
receives in the mail. Customers assign value to
every interaction they have with a brand, so we
need to deliberately consider the visual and verbal
cues, as well as the environmental and cultural
influences that impact that experience.
The key to a successful brand is the company’s
ability to fulfill that Shared Purpose at every turn.
The goal is for our intended brand to match how
the customer experiences it.
But how do you design the right interactions for
your brand experience? Ones that align with your
brand and Shared Purpose, and ultimately create
a differentiated experience for customers?
SharedPurposeWhy we exist
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PURPOSE TO EXPERIENCE APPROACH
1. Define
If you haven’t done so already, you must first
establish a clear and concise brand platform.
Grounded in customer insight, the platform
includes the typical components of a company
vision and values and articulates the promise
you’ll make to key audiences and benefits they’ll
derive from it. Radiating from the center of it all,
is your Shared Purpose.
To define a Shared Purpose, we start by
articulating the vision for how we want to impact
our people, our community, our world. We
understand what our customers and employees
need, what they expect, what they value. And
we find the intersection between the two. This
becomes the Shared Purpose that ignites our
brand. Everything we do, every product or service
we provide, every experience we create, should
intentionally fulfill that Shared Purpose and
elevate our brand. In short, purpose becomes the
filter for all decision making.
Next, translate your purpose into Brand
Experience Principles that drive experience
design. They serve as guideposts as you assess
your current experience and build towards
the future.
We mentioned Converse earlier and their clear
and intentional Shared Purpose: ‘inspire and
enable self-expression... It will change the world.’
But they didn’t create that lofty goal and then
let it float off into the land of theoretical and
undelivered promises. They took it, acted on it
and translated it into four principles that drive
every aspect of the business, motivate every
employee and determine every interaction they
have with customers and their community.
Converse Guiding Principles:
1. Celebrate our audience, not ourselves
2. Bring cultures together
3. Own, don’t rent
4. Be useful
In a moment, we’ll explain how Converse turned principles into action.
2. Assess
Create a framework to map the stages of the
journey across audiences and detail each
touchpoint and micro-touchpoint. Then determine
which of these moments matter most to your
audience - and why.
• Which interactions have the most impact?
• How is your brand perceived at each touchpoint?
• What value derived?
• What emotional responses are we eliciting? (both positive and negative)
Develop& Test
DesignAssessDefine
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Tools such as personas (representative customer
portraits brought to life through narrative and
visuals) and empathy maps (collaborative
tool teams use to understand how customers
experience your products and services) can be
very helpful in generating insights about what
your customers might be feeling, thinking, seeing
and doing. Gathering these insights will help
drive more consistent, positive experiences in the
future and help you further define the brand.
3. Design
Delivering a series of signature moments that
are completely unique to your brand and driven
by your Brand Experience Principles is critical.
These experiences not only communicate the right
message to your customers, but they engage the
senses and tap into emotion. Bringing the brand
to life through environmental, social, cultural and
digital touchpoints creates a more immersive
experience that will help elicit a powerful
emotional response from your customers.
Once Converse set their Principles in stone3, they
used them to inspire and guide the design of
every interaction, every experience. They make
them real through tangible pillars of Art, Skating
and Music. And they connected through their
customers to the world.
Principle: “Celebrate our audience, not ourselves” Experience: Drove the design of a campaign to
have customers mail in an old pair of Chucks - complete with the dirt, grime, wear and tear of life
– and tell the story of where the shoes had been. Pictures of the shoes, coupled with the story, became their advertising campaign. It connected with, and creatively celebrated, the expressed individuality of their customers.
Principle: “Bring cultures together” Experience: This manifested through the development of urban skate parks that brought diverse communities together.
Principle: “Be useful” Experience: This came to life through pop-up demo studios giving struggling musicians the chance to finally be heard and heralded.
4. Develop & Test
For a brand experience to be truly successful and
align with its Shared Purpose, it must be delivered
through all disciplines of the organization, not
just at the final moment of interaction with
the customer.
Challenge cross-functional leaders in your
organization (from operations to product
development to sales) to rethink how they impact
the full brand experience and purposefully infuse
the brand into what they do. Remember that these
experiences need to be scalable, repeatable, and
customer-centric.
Continually monitor the brand experience and
use what you learn to pilot, test and perfect the
highest impact signature moments that truly
reflect the core of our brand’s purpose. 3 Rodney Rambo, VP Global Marketing, Converse, Keynote Speech, The Gathering Conference, February 2016
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PARTNERING FOR PURPOSE
Customers are highly attuned to the brands
they associate with – and not because of
perceived brand status or luxury – but because
of authenticity, connection and social impact.
Meaningful brands have outperformed the
stock market by 206% over the last 10 years4.
The companies that shift their mindset to focus
on a Shared Purpose will ultimately make a
bigger impact on their customers, their
employees, and the community, as well as
their quarterly financial goals.
Understanding the link between your brand
and the customer experience, and then
purposefully building experiences to reflect
your brand strategy requires alignment across
your entire organization.
The best results often come when a fresh lens is
applied. It can be incredibly valuable to bring a
partner into your organization to help define
your Shared Purpose. A team of cross-functional
experts in brand, customer experience, and
organizational readiness that can not only
establish the connection between your purpose
and the experience you promise to provide, but
help you seamlessly deliver it.
Ultimately, you must walk with purpose hand
in hand with your customer before you run as
an organization.
4 Meaningful Brands. (n.d.). Retrieved May 01, 2017, from http://www.meaningful-brands.com/en
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Kim Osborn
Co-Lead – Brand & Marketing Strategy Practice
Joanne Lee
Co-Lead – Brand & Marketing Strategy Practice
AUTHORS
The Purposeful Brand
Through our Brand and Marketing Strategy Practice, we help
clients optimize their brand portfolios by delivering purpose-
driven brands that align with their customers’ lifestyles and
motivations. Grounded in research and insights, we help
clients formulate their Shared Purpose and bring their brands
to life through experience design, brand expression and
marketing strategy.
The Purposeful Brand
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We design human experiences to solve business challenges.
About Sparks Grove
If you’re interested in learning more about the ways that
Sparks Grove can help you achieve growth through experience,
please visit us at sparksgrove.com or call us at +1 404 961 9900 (US)
or +44.207.812.6460 (UK).
Sparks Grove is the experience design division of
North Highland, a global management consulting
firm known for helping clients solve their most
complex challenges related to customer experience,
performance improvement, technology and digital,
and transformation. We add value and support our
clients across the full spectrum of consulting, from
strategy through delivery. We bring the big ideas,
then we make them real.
At Sparks Grove, we apply design thinking to plan,
make and execute experiences across the entire
experience chain. We use insight, foresight, strategy,
design and development to transform businesses into
more human-centered, purpose-driven organizations.